EVERYDAY PRAYER

Memory of the Mother of the Lord
Word of god every day
Libretto DEL GIORNO
Memory of the Mother of the Lord
Tuesday, January 9


Reading of the Word of God

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

The Spirit of the Lord is upon you.
The child you shall bear will be holy.

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

Mark 1,21-28

They went as far as Capernaum, and at once on the Sabbath he went into the synagogue and began to teach. And his teaching made a deep impression on them because, unlike the scribes, he taught them with authority. And at once in their synagogue there was a man with an unclean spirit, and he shouted, 'What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are: the Holy One of God.' But Jesus rebuked it saying, 'Be quiet! Come out of him!' And the unclean spirit threw the man into convulsions and with a loud cry went out of him. The people were so astonished that they started asking one another what it all meant, saying, 'Here is a teaching that is new, and with authority behind it: he gives orders even to unclean spirits and they obey him.' And his reputation at once spread everywhere, through all the surrounding Galilean countryside.

 

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

Look down, O Lord, on your servants.
Be it unto us according to your word.

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

With his small community of disciples, Jesus enters Capernaum, the largest Galilean city of the time. There He chooses to make his home with the little group of disciples he has gathered. He does not withdraw far from the ordinary life of men and women to lead a quiet life with a small group of friends. He did not come to carve out a space for his own existence and for his own personal satisfaction surrounded by a group of people who held him in high esteem. He wanted to save all men and women from loneliness and death. This is why he settles in Capernaum, the most important city in the north of the country. With this small group of people Jesus wants to transform the entire city, and then all cities and countries. Indeed, it is the Christian community's nature, even if it is a small one, not to be turned inwards on itself, but rather to look at and care for the entire city as a "community" of men and women that the Gospel needs to ferment with love. It is not that the Christian community has a project of its own to impose on others. But it does have the mission to weave the strength of the Gospel into the fabric of the city and to affirm that only Jesus is the Lord, not money or power and even less injustice and corruption. The evangelist notes that Jesus "immediately" goes to synagogue and begins to teach. The first "service" that the Church provides in the city is to communicate the Gospel. The Gospel is a demanding word, one that requires a change of the heart and deeply transforms those who listen to it and provokes a true change. This is why all those who heard him were amazed. Jesus was different from the scribes: he did not merely pronounce words; he changed the lives of people starting with the poor. He immediately revealed what kind of authority he had when he freed a man from an unclean spirit. The Gospel is an authoritative word because it does not oppress people; on the contrary, it delivers men and women from the many evil spirits that hold them as slaves.

WORD OF GOD EVERY DAY: THE CALENDAR

Prayer is the heart of the life of the Community of Sant'Egidio and is its absolute priority. At the end of the day, every the Community of Sant'Egidio, large or small, gathers around the Lord to listen to his Word. The Word of God and the prayer are, in fact, the very basis of the whole life of the Community. The disciples cannot do other than remain at the feet of Jesus, as did Mary of Bethany, to receive his love and learn his ways (Phil. 2:5).
So every evening, when the Community returns to the feet of the Lord, it repeats the words of the anonymous disciple: " Lord, teach us how to pray". Jesus, Master of prayer, continues to answer: "When you pray, say: Abba, Father". It is not a simple exhortation, it is much more. With these words Jesus lets the disciples participate in his own relationship with the Father. Therefore in prayer, the fact of being children of the Father who is in heaven, comes before the words we may say. So praying is above all a way of being! That is to say we are children who turn with faith to the Father, certain that they will be heard.
Jesus teaches us to call God "Our Father". And not simply "Father" or "My Father". Disciples, even when they pray on their own, are never isolated nor they are orphans; they are always members of the Lord's family.
In praying together, beside the mystery of being children of God, there is also the mystery of brotherhood, as the Father of the Church said: "You cannot have God as father without having the church as mother". When praying together, the Holy Spirit assembles the disciples in the upper room together with Mary, the Lord's mother, so that they may direct their gaze towards the Lord's face and learn from Him the secret of his Heart.
 The Communities of Sant'Egidio all over the world gather in the various places of prayer and lay before the Lord the hopes and the sufferings of the tired, exhausted crowds of which the Gospel speaks ( Mat. 9: 3-7 ), In these ancient crowds we can see the huge masses of the modern cities, the millions of refugees who continue to flee their countries, the poor, relegated to the very fringe of life and all those who are waiting for someone to take care of them. Praying together includes the cry, the invocation, the aspiration, the desire for peace, the healing and salvation of the men and women of this world. Prayer is never in vain; it rises ceaselessly to the Lord so that anguish is turned into hope, tears into joy, despair into happiness, and solitude into communion. May the Kingdom of God come soon among people!

WORD OF GOD EVERY DAY: THE CALENDAR